World Politics News

LUANDA (AFP) - Angola is staging its first peacetime election but European Union observers said Friday that the organisation of the poll in Africa's new oil boom nation is a "disaster".

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine Muslim guerrillas halted a United Nations convoy and seized food supplies intended for tens of thousands of people displaced by weeks of fighting on a southern island, police said on Friday.

UNITED NATIONS - In criticism aimed primarily at the United States, Japan and the European Union, a U.N. report said Thursday that rich nations haven't delivered on promises to help the world's poorest nations and must increase aid by $18 billion a year.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council parried on Thursday a request from Somalia to send a peace-keeping force to the violence-torn nation, saying it would consider doing so when conditions there had improved.

NEW YORK - A construction worker fell about 40 stories to his death Thursday at a Manhattan skyscraper being built by the developer of the World Trade Center, authorities said Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senior trade officials will meet in Geneva next week to explore options for reviving world trade talks two months after the negotiations collapsed, U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said on Thursday.

DAMASCUS (AFP) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy winds up a two-day visit to Syria Thursday with a four-way summit including Turkey and Qatar aimed at boosting the roles of France and the European Union in Middle East diplomacy.

KIEV (AFP) - Ukraine's president cried foul on Wednesday after parliament clipped his presidential powers -- with more bad news in store as diplomats said hopes of EU membership would be deflated at a summit next week.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on Wednesday defended himself against criticism from State Department officials who suggested he had had unauthorized contacts in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - A United Nations peacekeeper in south Lebanon was killed by an explosion Wednesday while clearing unexploded ordnance, a U.N. official said.

BRUSSELS (AFP) - Serbia could become an EU candidate nation next year but must first meet conditions including full cooperation with an international war crimes court, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Wednesday.

UNITED NATIONS - The top American diplomat to the United Nations defended his dealings with Pakistani officials Wednesday, saying he never acted as adviser to a candidate for Pakistan's presidency.

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The US ambassador to the United Nations on Wednesday slammed as "patently false" press reports that he had "unauthorized" contacts with Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani presidential contender and widower of slain Benazir Bhutto.

NICOSIA (AFP) - Rival Cypriot leaders launched intensive talks on Wednesday on reunifying the Mediterranean island which the United Nations described as a "historic" move after three decades of failed diplomacy.

BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Union's highest court on Wednesday overturned a 2001 decision by EU governments to freeze the assets of a Saudi businessman and a Sweden-based charity suspected of funding al-Qaida terror groups.

KINSHASA, Congo - A humanitarian aid flight carrying 17 people crashed while trying to land during a storm in remote eastern Congo and all aboard were feared dead Tuesday, officials said.

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazil, the world's largest ethanol exporter, may soon challenge the United States at the World Trade Organization over its tariffs on imports of the fuel, Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said on Tuesday.

NICOSIA (Reuters) - Rival leaders of divided Cyprus launch last-ditch reunification talks on Wednesday to end a decades-old conflict threatening Turkey's EU membership hopes.

BAKU (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was on his way to ex-Soviet Azerbaijan on Wednesday for the first leg of a trip to show that Washington stood by its allies in the region despite Russia's military intervention in Georgia.

GAZA (Reuters) - An education and health dispute that has sparked a huge strike in Gaza may deepen the rift between Hamas and Fatah and harm chances of Palestinian reunification, a United Nations envoy said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday Moscow no longer considered Mikheil Saakashvili as Georgia's leader, calling him a "political corpse" and accusing his regime of "aggression that ended in many deaths."

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush praised "strong messages" from Europe on the crisis in Georgia during a telephone call with Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, the White House said Tuesday.

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Tuesday praised what he called the "common sense" shown by the European Union in its mild response to Russia's conflict with ex-Soviet Georgia.

BRUSSELS (AFP) - Russia's EU envoy affirmed Tuesday that Moscow would soon withdraw hundreds of troops from Georgia, a day after the European Union froze partnership talks until the forces pulled out.

BELGRADE, Serbia - Serb nationalists are blocking the parliamentary ratification of a pre-membership deal with the European Union over the arrest of war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic.

EU leaders condemn Moscow's actions in Georgia, but can't agree on a stronger response to their biggest energy supplier

MOSCOW - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia will respond calmly to an increase in NATO ships in the Black Sea in the aftermath of the short war with Georgia, but promised that "there will be an answer."

KINSHASA (AFP) - A plane carrying humanitarian aid with 17 people on board crashed into a mountain near Bukavu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a United Nations source said Tuesday.

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - African Union chair Tanzania wants to see a 50-50 power-sharing deal agreed for Zimbabwe immediately to stem a growing economic crisis, Tanzania's foreign minister said on Tuesday.